


Need You More Than Wanting

by celli



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Explicit Lovett/Emily, F/M, M/M, Multi, Multiple Alternate Universes, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-13 01:51:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18459002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: Jon and Lovett wake up married, with a single neighbor named Emily Black across the street. Which is all fantastical enough.But then the dreams start...





	Need You More Than Wanting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [electr1c_compass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/electr1c_compass/gifts).



> Thanks to thefourthvine, oops_ohdear, out_there, and misspamela for brainstorming and audiencing, and giddygeek and labellementeuse for betaing.
> 
> Keep it secret, please!
> 
> The title is a modification of a lyric from Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman":
> 
>   _And I need you more than want you_  
>  _And I want you for all time_

Jon woke slowly, reveling in the sun on his face and the warmth at his side. It was… Wednesday? Wednesday, so no pod today, so no one to object if he burrowed into the covers for just a few more minutes before facing the world.

He nuzzled into the shoulder next to him. “Morning, Em,” he said, reaching a hand out. “Can I interest you in a run this morning? Or something else athletic?”

His hand had just settled on a very masculine, very _not Emily_ hip when the body next to him jerked, flailed around, and nearly fell out of the bed. Jon reached out and found himself yanking Jon Lovett, wearing boxers and a Straight Shooter T-shirt, to a sitting position on the bed.

“No thank you?” Lovett squinted down at him.

Jon stared up at him. “I had, like, one glass of wine last night.”

“Don’t look at me,” Lovett said. “I had zero. In my own house. Across the street. Where I fell asleep on the couch playing video games. Not, may I emphasize, in your bed. Wearing totally different clothes!” He gestured at himself, and Jon reached out and snagged his hand again. “Hey! Favs--what?”

“You’re wearing a wedding ring,” Jon said. It was platinum, from the looks of it, simple but solid.

Lovett yanked his hand back. “Whatever’s going on, it’s _not funny_.”

Jon looked down at his own hand with a mounting sense of dread. His gold ring was gone; he was wearing a platinum band in the same style as Lovett’s. “Where’s Emily?” he asked, standing and reaching for his phone. “She and Tommy must have cooked up some freaky April Fool’s in August prank--”

He stopped short again just as Lovett started swearing on the other side of the bed. Jon knew without looking that they’d have the same lock screen: matching black suits, Jon in a bold red tie and Lovett in a matching bow tie, sharing a kiss in front of a laughing out-of-focus Dan Pfeiffer.

He opened his phone with a shaking hand and opened up his text messages. There was an unread from Tommy - _Come on, some of us still have wedding bods to work on! Bully L into coming, you guys can leer at each other across the room._ \- and beneath it, an exchange from “Emily Black.”

__**Emily:** Home safe - thanks for taking Leo out!  
**Me:** No problem! So, the date?  
**Emily:** Dinner was good. Dude was a loss.  
**Me:** :(  
**Emily:** Don’t worry about me, I’ll find somebody. 

Jon sat down hard on the bed.

*

They went through the house room by room, looking for - evidence? Clues? Hints to their own sanity? 

Bedroom: Jon’s henleys and jeans next to Lovett’s T-shirts and sweats. A picture of Jon grinning with Lovett’s mom kissing one cheek and his sister kissing the other. A box of sex toys that Jon certainly recognized some of, but, ah--

“Well, these look well-loved,” Lovett said, closing the lid emphatically and sliding it back under the bed.

Jon’s brain groped absently for a Velveteen Rabbit joke before giving up. “Sure,” he said.

Bathroom: Their things jumbled together, Lovett’s glasses crowded up against the edge of the sink by Jon’s shaving gel.

Living room: A collection of photos from White House days to now, displayed in and around bookshelves, a giant entertainment center, and what looked like incredibly comfortable furniture. Jon and Lovett started being the focus of photos taken in Los Angeles, and Jon wondered if they - or whoever - had started dating then. There was even a larger version of the wedding picture, this one showing Pundit at their feet. It was in a matting and frame signed by, presumably, the wedding guests. Jon searched through them grimly before Lovett put his finger on one in the lower right hand corner.

_Jon, Jon, & Pundit,_  
All the love in the world for you today!  
Emily & Leo 

Jon stood staring at it for he didn’t know how long, until Lovett finally said, explosively, “Say _something_ , for fuck’s sake.”

“I want to go home,” Jon said. “How do we go home?”

“How the fuck do I--”

“I’m not ask--”

“I know, I’m just saying--”

Jon’s phone rang, and both he and Lovett jumped. Jon stared down at Tommy’s familiar picture on the display. After a few fraught seconds, he answered it.

“Tommy?”

Tommy’s voice wasn’t panicked or out of whack. It was as normal as ever. “I guess that’s a no on Barry’s then?”

“Yeah, sorry, no,” Jon managed. “Raincheck?”

“No problem, see you at work.”

“Okay. --hey, Tommy?” Jon asked before his nerve could fail him. A few feet away, Lovett was looking at him, narrowing his eyes.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Who am I married to?”

Tommy groaned out loud. “Oh my _God_ , you two are gross. You’re married to Jonathan Ira Lovett, the most amazing person in the world, the man you’ve been in love with since 2009, blah blah. Is Lovett listening? Lovett, I’ve paid the ransom, let your man go to Barry’s.”

“Sorry, no Lovett, just me,” Jon said. “See you in a while.”

*

A quick Google turned up no major changes to Crooked Media, so they made their way there. The news was the same, politics were the same, the country was still the same damn trash fire. As far as Jon could tell, he and Lovett were the only two affected.

It would have been a typical day of preparing for the pod if not for the giant photo of the Crooked crew from the wedding blown up and hanging on one wall. If not for the occasional sly joke aimed their way - and the confusion when Jon and Lovett reacted to it with stiffness instead of laughter. If not for the wrong weight on his finger.

It was bad enough by the end of the day that the staff was avoiding Lovett and Dan was sending quizzical emails from San Francisco. _Anything you need to talk about? You can step out and call me, just let me put the baby down._

 _I woke up on the wrong planet, that’s all_ , Jon imagined himself telling Dan. Imagined the reaction. _Married to the wrong person. Living with the wrong dog. What are you going to do about that, Pfeiffer?_

He closed the email and left early.

*

He was sitting on Emily’s front steps when she pulled into the driveway. She gave him a little wave and let Leo out to run to him, jump up into his lap. Jon buried his face in Leo’s fur and fought back a wave of despair. When he looked up, Emily was looking down at him, head cocked to one side, studying him. He was reminded of how she had studied potential-Republican-him in that bar in DC, looking for evidence of… what, he didn’t know.

“Em?” he asked, barely able to make his throat work.

Then she smiled brightly down at him, and Jon’s heart broke, so sharply he was surprised she couldn’t hear it. “Favs! Where’s your better half?”

 _Here, here, here._ Jon swallowed that and made some excuse he couldn’t remember as soon as he’d said it.

“And you were lonely so you came over to bogart my dog. I see how it is,” Emily said, laughing down at him. “Well, come on in.”

Walking into the house - Emily’s house - was like trying to hold both worlds in his head at the same time. Emily was wearing a pair of shoes with high heels she’d been coveting the last time they went shopping, but a necklace Jon had never seen before. The house was the same gray and blue neutrals as Lovett had it, but with a fancy clock Jon and Emily had purchased together, a million family and friend photos, and of course, a picture from the damn wedding. In it, Jon, Lovett, and Emily were attempting some sort of three-sided dance, with the dogs bouncing between them. Jon could all but hear the barking. Emily was wearing a red dress that Jon definitely remembered unzipping her out of with his teeth just a few months ago, and God, he had a headache.

“Do we--do you have any Advil?” he asked, lowering himself to the couch in the living room and putting a shaky hand on his leg.

“Favs, what’s wrong?” Emily burst into action, and before Jon could get himself under control she was there with a couple of pills and a glass of water. “What happened?”

“Headache,” he managed. Fuck, he could smell her perfume. He swayed into her, and she put an arm around him. “Must have been outside waiting for you a little too long.”

“Dumbass,” she said cheerfully, and he had to ball his hands up into fists to keep from grabbing her and kissing her.

There was a noise in the doorway. Jon jerked away from Emily and spilled the water down his front.

“Clumsy dumbass,” she said as though nothing had happened. “I’ll get you a towel. Hey, Lovett. Someone couldn’t be without a dog for five minutes and came over for some Leo time.”

“Right,” Lovett said slowly as Emily ducked into the kitchen. “Leo.”

Emily came back and handed the towel to Jon. “You should take Favs home, I think he got a little bit of heat exhaustion waiting for us. He’s definitely not himself.”

“Who among us is?” Lovett said. He looked at Jon and said, more gently, “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Jon left with Lovett. What else could he do?

*

Jon spent the next few days trying to sleep as much as possible, under some not entirely put together theory that he’d eventually wake up and be back where he’d started. He slept in bed while Lovett slept in the guest room, he slept on the couch while Lovett slept in the bed, he slept on his crossed arms at his desk at lunch after recording the pod, he slept in the passenger seat as Lovett grudgingly drove home from work.

“I’m going to lie down on the off, off chance that _you’re_ not the actual Sleeping Beauty out of the two of us and I’m the one who needs to wake up and fix this all,” Lovett said. “Keep your fingers crossed.”

“I know it’s dumb,” Jon said.

“Didn’t I just say I’m doing it too?” Lovett patted Jon on the arm as he headed for the bedroom. “We’re both just trying to get you back to your life, Favs.”

Jon nodded. “And you,” he said belatedly.

“Eh.” Lovett shrugged. “What do I care where I play my video games?”

Still pondering that, Jon went to play with Pundit out front. He woke up, confused, to Pundit, Leo, and Emily hovering over him, similar looks of distress on their faces. “... h’lo?” he asked muzzily.

“Are you okay?” Emily asked.

“Yeah, I just… I think I fell asleep.”

“Jon.” There was a flurry of movement and Emily was on the ground sitting next to him. Jon clutched at Pundit and eyed Emily nervously. “Have you been to a doctor?” she asked. “I mean, for you to sit still this long, let alone fall asleep, this isn’t like you. And the pod--other people, like, people at Crooked, they’re checking in with Tommy and me to see if you’re okay and I don’t think we should say you are.”

“What’s wrong with the pod?” Jon asked automatically. 

Emily half-laughed. “Is that seriously the only thing you hear? There’s nothing _wrong_ with the pod, you’re just off your game. And you off makes Lovett off, and then it loops around for an eternity. Listen to the ads.” 

“I do feel very weird,” Jon said. He hesitated. “You don’t feel weird? Like something’s different all of a sudden?”

Emily considered. “Nothing worth mentioning,” she said. “Just my two best friends being giant weirdos.”

Jon looked at her. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

*

They limped through the rest of the week. Lovett or Leave It was especially rough. Jon apparently had a reserved spot for the show at the Improv, and the rest of the panel rained down double entendres on the two of them. Fortunately Lovett was the better performer of the two and took a tone of faux outrage and interest in privacy (everyone thought that was _hysterical_ , which didn’t bode well for them); all Jon had to do was blush and laugh at Lovett’s jokes.

They sat down in the living room Saturday morning (“We all know better than to bother you the morning after a show high,” Tommy had said at after-show drinks the night before, and Jon and Lovett had both forced smiles) and listened to the pod play out from the wall speakers. 

“A sample set from before the--the wedding, after it, and the ones after we showed up,” Lovett said.

They were in the middle of the second ad when Jon said quietly, “So.”

“We’re fucked,” Lovett agreed.

The friendship between Jon, Lovett, and Tommy had always been the core of Crooked Media, and it still was. But overlaid with it now was--fuck, oh, fuck. In this timeline, or universe, or delusion, whatever it was, Jon and Lovett were hardcore in fucking love with each other, and it was there in every ad, every third aside on the pod, every Rant Wheel. 

“Our brand is being nuts for each other,” Lovett said after listening to the pod immediately preceding the wedding.

Jon started to argue, but he really, really couldn’t.

The newest pods, both with Dan and with Tommy, were… not the worst in terms of commentary. In terms of entertainment, though, they were garbage, which Jon had known but tried to ignore. They were flat. He and Lovett hardly spoke.

“This explains my Twitter mentions,” he said.

“All of social media thinks we’re getting a divorce.” Lovett threw up his hands. “If we don’t, whatever, wake up back in our own beds in the very near future, we’re going to have seriously screwed up the lives of the poor bastards who belong here.”

“And if we never--” it was like talking through a mouthful of sand, but Jon kept going. “--never get back, we’ll have ruined the biggest thing in our lives.”

They sat in silence, listening while Tommy tried and failed to save an ad on the speakers.

“I have a suggestion, and you’re going to hate it,” Jon said suddenly.

“Oh yay,” Lovett said. 

“I think we should stop trading off nights in the bedroom,” Jon said. “It might help us stop flinching every time we touch each other during the day.”

To his surprise, Lovett confined himself to a glare and a “Fine.” But he followed it up with, “and here’s _my_ suggestion,” and Jon tensed.

“Uh-oh, what?” He tried to smile.

“We need to invite Emily over for dinner,” Lovett said. “I’m not trying to torture you, Favs, but she’s worried about you, and maybe you need to see her when you’re not at your worst.”

Jon took a deep breath. “All right.”

*

It was, um, a fucking disaster. Jon kept trying to lean across the table to Emily, and redirecting himself to lean into Lovett instead, and by the end of it Lovett’s right side was tucked under Jon’s left arm and only Emily could really eat at all.

“Is there something you guys want to tell me?” she asked finally.

“Like what?” Lovett asked too quickly. Jon elbowed him.

“Like you’re getting divorced or having a baby or moving to Orange County.”

“Orange County, really?” Jon asked.

“That’s the one you get up in arms about?” Lovett said. “How about the one where we’re leaving each other basically at the altar. Or the one where I apparently carry our child, which is a whole giant kettle of fish-slash-seahorses we need to discuss.”

“Please let’s don’t,” Emily said. Both she and Jon were laughing just a little harder than the joke really called for, but Lovett looked smug anyway.

“Really, we’re fine,” Jon said later as Emily headed out the door. “I’ve just been feeling reality a bit too much lately, that’s all.”

“It’s true, reality is kind of awful,” she said. “I suppose it’s wrong and shallow of me to tell you to make out with your adorable husband until you start to feel better?”

“Yes, it’s awful, go away,” he said, and faked a smile until she was gone.

Lovett poked his head out of the kitchen. “Okay, that was not as terrible a tire fire as I’d feared, this might be--oh, shit, Favs?”

“I’m fine, I’ll be there in a minute,” Favs said, pressing the heels of his hands hard against his eyes.

“You’re a fucking liar is what you are,” Lovett said, coming closer. Jon felt a hand on his arm. “It’s okay that this is awful, you know that, right?”

“I’m sorry,” Jon choked out. 

“Shut up,” Lovett said. Jon barely even registered how weird it was when Lovett put his arms around him, just grabbed him back and cried.

By the time he trailed off, Jon’s eyes burned and he had handfuls of Lovett’s T-shirt clenched in his fists. He let go reluctantly and staggered back a step. “Sorry,” he said again.

“Shut _up_ ,” Lovett said again and grabbed the Kleenex off the side table. Jon mopped himself up.

“Thank you?” he tried instead.

Lovett just laughed. “You’re welcome, I guess. Feel any better?”

Jon held his fingers an inch apart. “It’s a start, I guess.”

That night he had the first dream.

*

_”Lovett! Lovett’s home!”_

_“Are we narrating ourselves to the dog again?” Lovett closed the front door behind him and turned around--right into Jon, who swept him up into a full-body embrace._

_“Not that I object,” Lovett said a few minutes later, dazed, fighting his way out of a cloud of pinot and affection, “but I’ve been gone for the length of a movie. Why are you kissing me like it’s the deck of the _Titanic_?”_

_Jon beamed down at him. “Because I missed you.”_

_“You and your--” Lovett squinted up into his eyes. “Your half a bottle of wine missed me, I can tell.”_

_“We **did**.”_

_“Calm down, pouty-face. We just got back from a honeymoon where we had no chance at all to miss each other, and went right back to a job where we have no chance at all to miss each other. Most people would shove their significant other out the door and fucking enjoy it. Hell, most people would shove me out the door and change the locks.”_

_“Lovett,” Jon said, looking him in the eye. “I just spoke vows promising not to be ‘most people.’ Pay attention.”_

_Lovett started to argue, but Jon was already kissing him again. He grudgingly allowed himself to be kissed._

*

Jon opened his eyes and stared at the still-dark ceiling. Next to him Lovett shuffled around briefly and sighed.

Jon willed himself back to sleep.

*

The weeks (fucking _weeks_ ) passed, and Jon gradually stopped feeling like he was being tortured with hot pokers whenever he saw Emily. Their relationship wasn’t normal by any sense of the word, and she never stopped looking at him, puzzled, when she thought he wasn’t looking back, but she still kept coming over, and letting them come over. He always kept Lovett with them, which helped with the hot poker feeling and also the impulse to grab her and not let go. A little.

It did not immediately become second nature to fake smiling unselfconsciously at Lovett again, to drape an arm around his shoulder, to imitate their past/other selves and flirt across the recording table at him. Fortunately, Lovett was still funny as hell, so Jon leaned into that as hard as he could. It helped some. After some trial and error, he figured out that if he reblogged Lovett every third time and got in the usual number of twitter fights, nobody would really notice anything different.

The pods… the pods might never be as good as they’d been before. But Lovett really took the lead there, and Jon followed it to the best of his ability. The day Jon made a double entendre about Lovett’s mic stand Lovett laughed so long they had to cut three minutes out of the ad and Lovett stayed flushed for the entire rest of the ad session.

*

“You doing any better?” Tommy asked. They were resting at the top of a hike in Griffith Park. Jon had made excuses about going until Lovett had kicked him unobtrusively into giving in. 

“Am I some kind of Pollyanna asshole usually that I get a little down and people freak out?” 

“Yes. Yes, you are,” Tommy said.

Hanna, Emily, and Lovett were taking pics of the dogs. Jon only realized he was staring at Emily when Lovett looked up from next to her and waved tentatively at them. “I’m better,” he said.

“Mm-hm.”

“I’m _getting_ better, how’s that?”

“More believable,” Tommy said. Jon rolled his eyes. Tommy grinned. “Alyssa and I are like Favs polygraphs, trust us to parse your half-truths,” he said. “And Em, of course.”

Jon, to his credit, didn’t wince at all. “Yeah, I need to call Alyssa back one of these days.”

“Yeah, if you value your hearing, your sanity, and your credit rating,” Tommy said dryly, but the other three were heading their way so he mercifully dropped it.

Jon put an arm around Lovett, careful not to look anyone else in the eye. Lovett looked back at him, shrugged, put an arm around his waist. Somehow it gave Jon the nerve to look at the rest of them again. “Are we ready to head down, or do you need to get your Annie Leibovitz on some more?”

“Favs just wants to rest up more before we beat him to the bottom,” Hanna said.

“Me?” Jon gestured at himself. “Such slander against your elder. Aren’t my gray hairs worth respect?”

“Silver at the most,” Lovett said. He ran his hand over one of Jon’s temples. “Very distinguished, my husband.”

Jon leaned down and kissed Lovett along the top of his cheekbone. Lovett jolted in Jon’s arms but didn’t pull away. “Very blinded by love, _my_ husband.”

“Gross,” Tommy said cheerfully. “Come on, guys.” 

Emily fell in next to Lovett as they headed down the hill, Leo and Pundit trotting happily next to each other in between bouts of sniffing the ground. Jon held Lovett’s hand loosely. They walked along, talking in brief spurts about reality TV or Cabinet scandals. 

“If I had _my_ own plane, catch me and Pundit wandering up and down hills. I’d take the plane from the bottom of Griffith Park to the Observatory and back,” Lovett said.

“Favs would insist on coming along,” Emily said. “And so would Leo, to keep Pundit company.”

“Fine. You, Jon, Leo, Pundit, and me. No one else on my giant personal plane! That could sleep all of Crooked Media! I forbid it!”

“Just us,” Emily said solemnly. “Cross my heart.”

*

A couple of weeks later, they were in the middle of a Facebook Q&A, getting filmed for Instagram stories, when Jon felt a tug on his hoodie and realized Lovett was playing with the string on it. “They do say you have me wrapped around your finger,” he said, leaning in closer to follow the pull.

“Nobody says that,” Lovett said, startled into holding in place.

“Everyone says that,” the rest of the room corrected him.

Jon laughed.

Lovett smirked and kept winding the string; Jon kept leaning in. The two of them didn’t stop until they were practically nose to nose. Jon lifted an eyebrow; Lovett flickered a glance to the side, where Elijah was gleefully recording video. Jon just smiled and waited.

Lovett leaned forward, kissed the tip of Jon’s nose, and turned back to his laptop.

“Likewise, I’m sure,” he said. “Next!”

Jon sat back, rattled in a way he couldn’t explain, and tried to make the words on the screen make sense.

*

_”I’m done, I’m done, I’m done, I’m done.” Lovett slammed his computer shut; Jon looked over, catching the back door a split second before it would have shut on his own face. Pundit barked happily in the yard behind. “I am done with this bullshit we call a democracy. Jon, get off Twitter,” he said without looking over._

_Jon slid his phone back in his pocket. “Maybe I was checking the weather.”_

_Lovett snapped Jon’s laptop closed too and whipped around to face him. “Were you, though.” It was not a question. “Give me the phone.”_

_Jon stood next to the couch and crossed his arms. “Nope.”_

_A smile started to play around the edge of Lovett’s mouth. “Make it worth your while?”_

_“I don’t know, man. Yelling at people is a rush.”_

_Lovett walked slowly across the room, giving Jon’s heart a chance to kick up several full notches. Jon waited for the quick quip, the challenge, but instead Lovett just looked at him, still barely smiling, and ran a hand up Jon’s arm to his shoulder._

_Lovett brought all his frustration and need to the kiss. He kissed like he was still trying to convince Jon to pay attention to him - as if Jon had ever needed convincing of that. Jon kissed him back as his counterargument and wrapped one arm tight around him. With the other hand, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dropped it in the general direction of the floor._

_“You’re going to break that,” Lovett said into the kiss._

_“I don’t care about the fucking phone,” Jon said._

_Lovett pushed him onto the couch and methodically started stripping him. When Jon tried to pull on the end of Lovett’s shirt, Lovett pushed his hands away. “Not right now.”_

_When Jon was naked, shifting a little under Lovett’s steady gaze, Lovett bent from where he knelt next to the couch to kiss him again, one hand resting on his chest. He leaned into Jon, ran his fingers over one nipple, dropped his mouth to bite at the other when Jon started shifting under him._

_Jon ran a hand over the back of Lovett’s neck. “Fuck, I love you,” he said as Lovett worked his way down Jon’s stomach._

_“Mm-hm,” Lovett said into Jon’s skin. Jon flexed his fingers against Lovett’s back._

_By the time Lovett got a hand on his cock, Jon’s whole world had narrowed to this few feet of space. To Lovett and what Lovett was doing to him. The first few strokes were dry, then Lovett leaned far enough over Jon to grab the lube out of the side table._

_Jon yanked on Lovett’s T-shirt until Lovett leaned close enough to kiss him. He slid one hand up the back of Lovett’s shirt and kept the other firm on his face, keeping him there every time Lovett tried to pull back._

_“I can’t see what I’m doing, you asshole,” Lovett said, laughing down at him._

_“You know your way around my dick in the dark, come on,” Jon said. “Just kiss me.” He put one hand down to tangle with Lovett’s on his cock, and came just like that, sighing into his mouth._

_As soon as he got his brain back, he wrapped his arms around Lovett awkwardly, since Lovett was still kneeling next to him. “My turn, strip,” he said, and Lovett laughed--_

*

Jon flung himself away from where he was cuddled around Lovett and slid out his side of the bed, landing awkwardly on one foot and one knee. “I, um, I gotta, gym,” he said.

Lovett was already closing the bathroom door behind him. The shower turned on before Jon even had his (baggiest) shorts on. He focused on his breathing all the way to the car.

*

The damn dreams just kept coming.

They played footsie during a founders’ meeting (Tommy looked disgustingly relieved)? Jon relived the night they signed the paperwork, complete with victory sex. Really, really bendy victory sex.

Lovett put a hand over Jon’s to stop him fiddling with his wedding ring during an interview and left it there? A dream about sliding Lovett’s ring on his finger at the wedding - just that, nothing else - that still left Jon breathless when he woke up.

Lovett sprawled out enough on a chair during a Pod Tours America college show to throw his feet in Jon’s lap, and Jon left them there until it was time for the game? A dream about… having sex with Lovett on the stage at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, which, okay, that just made sense.

*

Brunch for five, two dogs and three humans, and Jon didn’t didn’t realize he was smiling until Lovett left for the bathroom and Emily said, “So, better?”

“What?” Jon looked back from Lovett’s departing back. “Am _I_ better?”

“I would say, from the outside, yes.” She had slipped one foot out of its sandal to run it along Leo’s back, and Jon still loved her as much as he ever had, but something was blunted enough that he could just smile back at her, not hide his face or paint a smile on it.

“Better. Yeah,” he said finally, and she beamed at him. 

“That’s the Jon Favreau I know and love!”

“Not quite, but a good facsimile,” he told her.

They were taking pictures of Pundit and Leo when Lovett got back; Jon reached out for Lovett’s hand and pulled him into frame. “Quick, Em, group shot!”

“Did you notice anything about Emily?” Lovett asked when they got back to their house.

“No? Oh, God, now what?” Jon asked.

“I’m probably making it up, but there was something,” Lovett waved a hand, “something a little off there.”

“She mostly seemed happy I--we’re happy,” Jon said.

Lovett dropped it, with the air of someone who was clearly dropping it.

*

They called the election for Doug Jones, and the room went wild. Jon ended up in a three-way hug with Tommy and Priyanka. Over her shoulder he could see Lovett looking at his laptop, smiling to himself.

“I’ll be--hang on,” Jon said and headed across the room. Lovett was still in his own world and didn’t see Jon coming until he was a foot away. He looked up; the smile stayed. “They did it. The Democrats did it. We did it, a little bit.”

Jon put a hand under Lovett’s elbow and tugged him to his feet. “Lovett,” he said.

“Jon.” Lovett looked at him.

Jon ducked his head and kissed him. There was a fine tremble as their mouths met; Jon wasn’t sure if that was him or Lovett.

Lovett slowly put his arms around Jon’s back. Jon wrapped himself up in the kiss, in Lovett, one hand on his arm and the other on his cheek, and just sank into it.

Tommy’s hand, falling heavy on his shoulder, was like a bucket of cold water. “You’re adorable, make out later,” he yelled. “Someone’s going for champagne!”

“Right,” Lovett said sheepishly and untangled himself from Jon. Jon grabbed his hand, though, and held on. Lovett held back.

*

“Listen,” Lovett said, hours later, when they’d celebrated and tweeted and done all the work things, then driven home, taken Pundit out, tried to settle her, “our lives are beyond weird and there was a lot of emotion floating around tonight, you don’t have to worry I’ll expect, you know, something--”

Jon took Lovett’s face in his hands as Lovett stuttered to a stop. “What if _I_ expect something? Is that okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve been dreaming about you,” Jon said. “I can’t stop dreaming about you. I can’t stop looking at you. I can’t stop listening for you when you’re not in a room.”

“You’re in love with Emily,” Lovett said. 

Jon closed his eyes. Took a breath. Opened them and looked at Lovett. “I’ll always be in love with Emily.”

Lovett’s jaw moved against Jon’s hands. “At least he’s honest,” he said to no one in particular.

“But now I’ll always be - Lovett--”

Lovett dragged Jon into a kiss. “Yeah,” he said, raggedly, when they could finally manage to let each other up for air. “Yeah.”

Jon followed Lovett into the bedroom and undressed him as carefully as he could stand to. He got Lovett’s shirt off and couldn’t help running his palms across his chest, down his arms, circling his delicate wrists with his hands.

Lovett shrugged in his grasp. “Stop staring, you know what I look like.”

“I _like_ what you look like.”

“Well, likewise,” Lovett said, “so take _your_ shirt off.”

Jon yanked his off. Lovett laughed. “Not the reaction I was going for,” Jon said.

Lovett held his arms wide. “I’m right here, do your worst.”

Jon tackled him - very, very gently - to the bed, which had them both laughing until Jon reached for the waistband of Lovett’s pants.

Once they were both naked, Jon climbed on the bed and stretched out next to Lovett. “Is this where I tell you I’ve never done this before?”

“This is a good time, yeah.” 

“Okay,” Jon said, leaning in to kiss Lovett again. “I’m in your hands.”

“What a great idea,” Lovett said, and proceeded to put his hands on nearly every inch of Jon. From the sore spot at the base of Jon’s left shoulderblade to the ticklish soles of his feet, Lovett explored it all, stopping occasionally to kiss or nip at an area he particularly liked. 

“Lovett. Lovett.”

Lovett looked up from where he’d been worrying a bruise into the skin of Jon’s hip. “What?” he asked crossly. “I’m busy here.”

“When’s it my turn?”

“You asked me that--” Lovett froze for a second, and then let out a long sigh. “You get as many turns as you want.” He crawled back up the bed and kissed Jon, wrapping one hand around Jon’s cock.

Jon groped blindly for Lovett’s hips and closed a hand around his cock. They bumped comfortably - and familiarly - against each other. Jon dropped his head back on the bed and went by feel alone, Lovett’s breath hot on his shoulder and his hand just the right pressure on Jon’s cock.

Jon choked out Lovett’s name as he came; Lovett was silent, shaking in Jon’s arms.

*

Once they were cleaned up and tucked under the covers, Lovett leaned into Jon’s shoulder and said softly, “I’ve been dreaming about you, too.”

Jon stopped playing with Lovett’s wedding ring and looked over. “The same dreams?”

“Pretty sure. The one where I had my way with you on the couch,” even in the low light coming in from the window it looked like he was blushing, “and the wedding one--”

“With the hands, yeah,” Jon said, lacing his fingers through Lovett’s. “I just really like your hands, okay.”

“Because the dream made you like--”

“Lovett.”

“What?”

Jon met his eyes. “Is that how it is for you?”

Lovett took a deep breath, let it out. “No. But--”

Jon leaned forward and kissed him. When he leaned back, Lovett didn’t say anything, but he tightened his grip on Jon’s hand and put his head back on Jon’s shoulder, which Jon was going to take as a win.

*

They had three weeks. Three terrifying, wonderful weeks. Weeks to carefully (re)integrate PDA at work, so they wouldn’t make people suspicious again. Weeks to start learning each other, with the dreams blurring the division between real life and someone else’s life and their old lives and their new.

Jon expected a dream about himself and Emily, to be honest, and to be even more honest wouldn’t have minded being reminded of their life in this same detail-filled fashion.

But being with Emily was - was awkward. Neither he nor Lovett knew what to do with their hands or arms or faces now that they weren’t faking being lovey-dovey. And Emily was picking up on it, which was worse.

“I’m not saying you should throw Lovett on my floor and ravish him, Jon, but I went to your wedding, I’ve seen you kiss. You are allowed to PDA around me.”

Jon shifted; that was uncomfortably close to last night’s dream. But Lovett just smirked.

“PDA is not a verb, did you pick that up on the twitters somewhere?”

“Listen, just because you’re older doesn’t make you wiser--” and they were off on an argument they’d had a dozen times, in Jon’s memories at least. He laughed and sat back to listen. A few minutes later he realized he had one hand on Lovett’s neck and was toying with his hairline; he sat up and drummed his hand on his thigh. Emily looked over and raised an eyebrow at him.

That night, they dreamed about Emily. But.

*

_The door had barely closed when Emily reached for Lovett. He laughed and shrugged off his jacket while she pulled his T-shirt up._

_“I say this with no intention of complaining, but what is going on today?” he asked once it cleared his head. “You were making eyes at me all through brunch.”_

_Emily tossed her sweater onto the couch. “Such a nice euphemism.”_

_“Fine, you were eyefucking me all through brunch.”_

_“I was,” she said. She stepped out of her sandals; her white dress fluttered around her thighs as she moved. “Don’t tell me you hated it. I could see you squirming over there.”_

_“Are you kidding? I didn’t want to give the menu back. Favs was laughing at me the whole fucking time.”_

_She giggled. “I can’t help it. Maybe it’s the adorable sunshine. Maybe it’s getting out of the DC stress cycle. But you feel different and I feel different and I… like feeling you?” She laughed again as she ran her hands up his sides, but the look she gave him as she bent to kiss his chest was full of intent. Lovett hissed out a breath as she bit down on a nipple. One hand came up to cradle her head as she soothed the pain with her tongue, then sucked a mark into the skin right next to it._

_“Em, oh, fuck,” Lovett said._

_She lifted her head long enough to kiss him hard and then said, “C’mon, take me to bed or lose me forever.”_

_Lovett’s lust-addled brain finally placed the reference. He laughed. “We will discuss your shameful ‘80s movie knowledge later,” he said, and they dragged each other to the bedroom. Once there, he got most of the way out of his sweatpants and boxers, stopped, took his sneakers off, got his clothes the rest of the way off, and looked up at Emily, who was just delicately stepping out of her panties._

_“God, how did you end up with me?” he asked._

_“I got very, very lucky,” she said, radiating sincerity._

_He rushed back to his feet and kissed her._

_They crawled into bed and curled around each other. Lovett ran a hand down Emily’s back, around her hip. She reached in to kiss him, arms tight around his neck. They rocked against each other, content, for a minute, then Lovett ran his hand across her breast. She sighed into his mouth and laid out under him, letting her legs fall open, and brought one hand up to tap the top of his head. He smiled against her mouth._

_“Request received,” he said. She grinned up at him._

_Lovett kissed his way slowly down her throat and chest. He stopped to turn his head at her breast and she poked him in the head again._

_“I’m good here, keep going,” she said._

_He went more slowly down her stomach, making her groan and twist her hips under him. He laughed into her skin and slid down to nose between her legs._

_At the first lick of his tongue on her, she made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sigh. She grabbed her breast tightly; the other hand skimmed over Lovett’s hair before gathering up a fistful of covers._

_Lovett took his time and slowly, expertly, with tongue and fingers, drove her wild. She went from sighs to gasps straight to swearing at him, and when she got to “Jon, you fucker, just fucking move your fingers!” he took his cue and sent her straight up and over the edge._

_“How was that for you, then?” he asked, grinning at her from between her legs._

_She urged him up and over her so she could kiss him. “A good start,” she said. She nudged him over on his back and swing a leg over him. “Let’s see how you like it.”_

_“Oh, I think I’ll like it a lot,” he said._

_She aligned them and slid down on him very gently, very slowly._

_“I know what you’re trying to do,” he said, “and you’re not getting away with it.”_

_“I’m just making love to you,” Emily said._

_“You’re just torturing me, but it’s fine, I can take it,” Lovett said._

_“Okay.” She lowered herself another fraction; Lovett swore under his breath. She looked superior._

_Emily paused a long second once she was all the way down. “I like this feeling,” she said, and wiggled around a little. Lovett’s eyes watered. She braced herself on his shoulders and leaned in to kiss him, her hair falling against his cheeks. “I like this a lot.”_

_“I like **you** a lot,” Lovett said fervently._

_Emily started moving with no warning and no hesitation. “Fucking, oh fuck, fuck,” Lovett said, and grabbed for her hips. She bowed her head to concentrate and her hair blocked any view of her face; Lovett listened for her, instead, and the soft sounds she made as she rose and fell._

_Lovett closed his eyes and lived in that world for as long as he could, just their bodies moving together and her gasps offsetting his grunts. He smelled her shampoo and could still taste her on his tongue._

_“Come on, Jon, come on,” she finally said, squeezing hard around him, and he came with a wordless shout._

_She peeled herself off him and rolled to lie across the bed, breathing hard. Lovett kissed her while she got a finger on her clit, and she came like a shot._

_“Well,” Lovett said, collapsed next to her._

_“Well,” she said. She reached down to hold his hand._

_“Can we have brunch every day?”_

_Emily laughed loud and long. “Why the hell not, it’s LA!”_

*

Jon opened his eyes. He could hear Lovett breathing next to him.

“I think I’m going to go sleep in the guest room,” Lovett said after a long time spent staring at the ceiling.

“Why?” Jon asked. “You didn’t do anything, you didn’t make the dream--”

Lovett stood up, still not looking at Jon. In a hollow voice, he said, “because for the first time, I feel like I lost something too.”

And then he was gone, leaving Jon to stare miserably after him.

*

Jon and Lovett were back to the beginning, it seemed. Lovett flinched away from Jon in public, sounded like a robot on the pods, and hid in bed - in the guest room bed - all the time. “I’m not asleep,” he snapped when Jon came to lurk in the door. “God knows where I’d wake up this time. I’m just hiding. I’m allowed to hide. Go let me hide.”

Jon fell back into his old coping mechanisms, namely Twitter fights and working out, which at least had the advantage of human contact - just not with the two humans he most wanted contact with. Because if he didn’t know how to approach Lovett, he sure as hell didn’t know how to be around Emily. Was he upset? Was he jealous? Was he happy for them? What did he want? What did he want for them? It was enough to make a man want to hide in bed, but someone already had the monopoly on that.

They did finally all get together for Reality Show Night, and as usual Jon and Lovett’s squirreliness transmitted itself to Emily, who kept peering over Lovett on the couch at Jon like someone could answer a question, but fuck if Jon knew the question. For once, she didn’t ask, though, and Jon felt like he was getting away with something.

Until he looked over halfway through the show and saw Emily and Lovett, completely focused on the TV, holding hands.

 _Well, shit,_ he thought.

Neither of them reacted, and the next time he looked back they’d let go. Maybe he’d made it up.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

He’d talk to Lovett about it in the morning.

*

_Lovett came back from the bathroom naked, squinting against the glare of the light from a different angle than back home, and climbed back into bed next to Emily, who was wearing her Parachute robe, belted loosely, and her glasses, and nothing else. He pushed up his own glasses on his nose, took a long look, and smiled._

_“Thank you.”_

_“For what?” she asked._

_“For marrying me.” He tried to resist it but had to add, “Duh.”_

_“You’re welcome, and likewise, duh,” she said. They both giggled their way into a kiss._

_The Maine sunlight was warm through the quaint window of the quaint room in the quaint B &B, Emily’s acres of white dress were draped across two chairs across from them, and this amazing, funny, sexy woman was under him in the heaps of bedding on an old four-poster bed, pulling off her glasses and his to toss them in the general direction of the bedside table._

_Lovett nosed through the lapel of the falling-open robe to find her breast and covered it with kisses, taking his time before getting to work on one nipple with teeth and tongue. He looked up; Emily had propped a pillow behind her neck so she could watch him. Her eyes were dreamy and two fingers were lazily working between her legs. Lovett buried his face between her breasts. He felt her free hand come up to cup his neck and her stomach contract as she bent down to kiss the top of his head._

_He rolled her already-stiff nipple between his fingers and brought his mouth to her other breast. She was already making soft, happy sounds. He only lasted a few minutes before he had to lean up and kiss her._

_Emily looped one arm around his neck. She brought her hand up from her clit and slid her fingers into his mouth; he sucked on them obligingly. She rolled her head back, eyes never leaving him, and moaned._

_“I’m ready,” she said. “Are you ready?” She took her hand out of his mouth, sadly, and put it on his cock, which made up for it. “Yeah, you’re ready. Come on.”_

_They panted into each others’ mouths as they thrust together. The sun was warm on Lovett’s back, and Emily’s nails dug in at the nape of his neck. She wrapped her legs around him and he switched to shorter, sharper strokes that made her sob at a higher and higher pitch._

_Lovett knew desperately that he was going to come. “Emily,” he said into her ear, “Emily,” and she shook under him. He made it a bare few thrusts later before collapsing in her arms._

*

Jon lay in bed, one arm stretched out over an empty space, for a long time. Then he got up and washed his face until there was no trace of tears.

He walked down the hall to the guest room.

“Go the fuck away,” Lovett called as Jon was raising his hand to knock.

Jon pushed the door open. “No.”

Lovett had one arm over his face, but Jon could still see the tears leaking down his cheeks. He sat on the bed and put his hand next to Lovett’s shoulder.

“Are you here to yell at me for sleeping with your wife?” Lovett asked.

“Seems like you slept with your wife,” Jon said neutrally. “Maybe I should be mad at her for sleeping with my husband.”

Lovett smeared his hand across his face and squinted up at Jon. “What?”

“I’m just saying, perspective is important,” Jon said. Then, as gently as he could, “Lovett, are you okay?”

“I’m really confused,” Lovett said on a sob. “How can I feel like this? These fucking dreams. Who the fuck am I if I’m not gay, Jon?”

Jon dared to put a hand on Lovett’s arm, and Lovett didn’t shrug it off, which seemed like a good sign. “I don’t know what it means that we live in all these worlds at the same time, but there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Well, how did you handle it when you suddenly weren’t straight anymore?” Lovett asked.

Jon decided that discretion was the better part of valor. “The important thing is--”

The doorbell rang two times in quick succession, followed by a fist pounding on the door. “Jonathan Ira Lovett, get down here!” Emily shouted.

“Oh, shit,” Jon said. Lovett managed a teary laugh.

*

“And how long have you been in this, um, this universe, or whatever?” Emily asked. She huddled farther back into her chair across from where Jon and Lovett sat on the couch, not touching. She was still in a Brown for Senate T-shirt and sweats, hair loose and tangled around her shoulders. Jon didn’t touch her, either.

He shifted. “Do you remember in August when I showed up on your doorstop and you thought I had heatstroke?”

“Ohhh. Yeah, that’s when the pods got weird and everything.”

“Don’t remind me,” Lovett said, clearly trying for his normal sarcasm and ending up somewhere in bewildered bitterness. Jon fiddled with a loose string on the hem of his shirt.

“So how did you get from there to back in love? Or--”

“In love for the first time,” Jon said clearly. Next to him, Lovett muttered something but fell silent when Jon looked at him. “We had dreams about our, our past lives.”

“And those made you fall in love,” Emily said.

“It sounds fake when you say it that way,” Lovett said. “I don’t--the dreams don’t seem fake.”

“They sure don’t feel fake, do they?” Emily asked brightly. “Any of them.”

Jon and Lovett both stared at her.

“Yep,” she said.

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose. “You had _all_ the dreams with us.”

“Yep,” she said. 

“I don’t. I don’t have a reaction to that,” Jon said.

Emily said, “I’ve been trying to ignore them for months, but if I’m apparently _married_ in another life--”

Lovett stood abruptly. “Listen, Em,” he said, and both Jon and Emily jumped. “I don’t know what kind of sadistic whatever is behind all this, but you’ll start having the _right_ dreams soon. You and Jon are perfect together. I was at your wedding, your real wedding.”

“Lovett--” Jon put a hand on his arm.

Lovett knocked it away. “ _Don’t_. I’m going to go be, I can’t, I’m going over to Spencer’s. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.” His voice cracked just the slightest at “work.”

“Don’t leave,” Jon said. “We can talk about this.”

“We’re a cliche,” Lovett said. “No, no talking. Just let me go, Jon.”

Jon put his head in his hands so he wouldn’t have to watch. There were some soft rustling sounds in the bedroom and bathroom, and then the front door closing.

Emily sat next to him and put a hand on his arm. Jon leaned into her.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.

Jon lifted his head and looked at her. Her eyes were bright with tears but she was smiling a little.

“I’ve always been a little bit in love with you, Jon Favreau. But I knew the minute I met you that you were in love with someone else. I’ve never seen anyone as happy as you two the day you got married.”

 _We were_ , Jon thought, but didn’t say anything.

“And I have dream proof, too, don’t forget,” she said, tapping her temple. 

“Of more than that,” he said.

Emily rubbed one hand over her eyes. “Don’t, Jon, okay? All the dreams can’t come true, that’s not how this works.”

He sighed.

She leaned in and kissed his cheek. His heart tried to beat out of his chest. “He’ll come back,” she said, and then she was gone too, and he was alone.

*

Every step Jon took for the next week was an additional weight on his already heavy heart. He forced himself through the routines of his day. For the first time since Crooked Media was founded, he showed up at nine, left at five, and went home, where he crawled into bed until it was time to suffer through mornings again.

Lovett worked remotely every day after the disastrous Tuesday pod when he and Jon could barely look at each other, let alone carry on a conversation. Tommy reached over and yanked Jon’s iPad out of his hand halfway through and took over leading the discussion, and they limped through it, but it was not a livestream they would ever air. 

Tommy carried the ad reads, too, and tried to talk to Jon and Lovett together and separately, but Jon refused to talk and refused to talk. Tommy didn’t give up until Lovett, over a post-pod conference call Thursday, shrieked in frustration.

“Give it up, Tommy! We’re not making up on command. We’re not making up at all. Just stop.”

Jon got up, left the conference room, walked to his desk, did not reach for Pundit’s leash, picked up his keys, and drove himself home, where he did not look across the street to where Emily would not be in view. He made himself just enough dinner for one, loaded the dishwasher, changed his clothes, and got into bed.

He hadn’t dreamed all week. Why would he tonight?

*

_Lovett ignored his text message chime and curled up with Emily. “Shh, go away, I’m not coming,” he said._

_She giggled and wrapped her legs around his. “FIne with me, but you did promise him.”_

_The phone chimed again. “Shut it, Favs,” Lovett said into Emily’s shoulder._

_“Think of it this way,” she said. “Maybe, if you’re very lucky, he’ll get super sweaty and take his shirt off.”_

_“Make way,” Lovett said, and rolled out of bed._

_Emily laughed._

_“Stupid Favs,” Lovett said, muffled, from the bathroom. “Who gave him the right to be hot like burning **and** be one of the best people on the planet?”_

_“How dare he,” said Emily._

_Lovett walked back into the bedroom, leaned over the bed, and kissed Emily. “How did I get lucky enough to have two people like that in my life, is the question,” he said, kissed her again, and left her misty-eyed as he rushed out the door._

_*_

_The end credits of The Bachelor played, and Emily gathered up her keys and Leo’s leash. “Man, I’m going to have trouble beating that meal next week.”_

_“Postmates thanks you,” Lovett said._

_“Postmates is very welcome,” Emily said. She leaned over and kissed Lovett on the cheek, then did the same to Jon. “Night, guys.”_

_Jon and Lovett stood at the front window watching her walk back across the street, Jon’s arm around Lovett’s shoulders._

_“I’ve always been a little bit in love with Emily Black,” Lovett said abruptly._

_Jon looked down at him. “You what?”_

_“You know. In my own way.” Lovett shrugged._

_Jon took his hand and started pulling him to the bedroom. “Come tell me all about it, Jon Lovett.”_

_Lovett squawked. “It’s not--”_

_“Bullshit it’s not.”_

_“We can’t just--”_

_“We can and we will.”_

_“Pundit will lick the plates,” Lovett said, despairingly…_

*

In his sleep, Jon flinched back from the oncoming memory.

*

_Jon collapsed into bed next to Emily, both of them breathing hard._

_“Well, **that** was fun,” she said._

_He grinned over at her. “I love you.”_

_“Well, conveniently, I love you too.”_

_They were spooned up together, Jon mostly asleep, when Emily asked tentatively, “Jon?”_

_“Yeah, honey?”_

_“Did you used to have a thing for Lovett?”_

_He snapped wide awake. “Did I--I mean--yeah.”_

_She turned around to face him in the low light, still in the circle of his arms. “I’m glad it didn’t occur to you to lie.”_

_“Seems like a bad idea,” he said. “Besides, I think everyone who knew me back then knew I had it bad for him.”_

_“I bet you he didn’t.”_

_Jon stopped, considered. “No, he must have. I was not a subtle young man.”_

_Emily laughed. “So what happened?”_

_“Nothing. Literally nothing. I was his boss, and then he left, and then there was you, and my deal was sealed.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “And I still get to have you both in my life, so who’s luckier than I am?”_

_“I get it. I love him too, you know.”_

_“I know.” Sudden tears pricked at the backs of Jon’s eyes. He closed them and rested his head on Emily’s. “Enough soul-searching, go to sleep.”_

_She snuggled up against him and was asleep in seconds. Jon opened his eyes and looked into the dark room for a long time._

*

“I get it,” Jon said to thin air, waking up, shoving at the dried tears on his cheeks. “Jesus, I get it, okay?” He slammed his way into the shower.

When he walked out the front door, Emily was waiting next to the car, Leo’s leash in her hand, wearing that red dress of hers. “Figured Leo might distract Pundit so we can talk to him,” she said. 

“He’s not gonna be there,” Jon said. “And Spencer would chew off an arm before he told me where.”

Emily just waggled her phone at him. “Done.”

Jon laughed and scooped her up in his arms, then remembered. “Uh. Can I--?”

“I think you’re going to have to at some point,” she said lightly, but her eyes showed her nerves.

It was nothing like their first kiss; they were years older, with years more experience (not all of which he was going to contemplate at the moment), but she was still Emily, sweet and fierce and all in. He raised his head and smiled at her.

She put a hand on his cheek and smiled back. “Hi there.”

“Hi,” he echoed.

She reached up and kissed him again, just a brush of lips. “Put a pin in _that_.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He opened the car door for her and Leo and got himself settled.

Emily laughed.

“What?”

“Is this where I say ‘Let’s go and get our man?’”

Jon rolled his eyes at her and pulled out of the drive.

*

“Nope,” Lovett said when he walked out of Starbucks to find Emily, Jon, and Leo waiting expectantly. “Sorry, no.” He tugged on Pundit’s leash, but she was busy saying hi to Leo and didn’t respond right away. Jon would have high-fived Emily if his heart wasn’t in his throat.

“Lovett, please,” Emily said. “Just talk to us.”

“I said no,” Lovett said, then immediately undercut himself by saying, “and especially not in front of a damn Starbucks.”

Jon shrugged. “Here, home, in the Crooked Media offices - we’re all yours.”

“Fine,” Lovett said airily. “I need to grab some more T-shirts anyway.”

They followed him back to the house, and Jon could see, at what would be the turn to Spencer’s, as Lovett’s car wobbled a bit before steadying. Jon looked over at Emily, who freed one hand from her death grip on Leo to put it on Jon’s arm.

“It’ll work,” she said. “It will.”

Lovett led the way in, past the yard where they let the dogs off their leashes, and sat in the same corner of the couch he’d been in the night Emily had come banging on their door. Jon and Emily exchanged a glance and took the same seats: Jon on the couch next to Lovett, Emily in the chair across from them.

“See?” Lovett pointed. “You’re already doing the conversation-with-your-eyes thing.”

“We did that before, all of us,” Emily said.

“It’s different when you do it. It’s _married_ when you do it.” Jon opened his mouth; Lovett rounded on him. “And don’t say we’re married! You know we’re not, not really. I am not really married to you, and I have never been, been married to Emily, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Lovett--” Jon tried.

“I’m telling you, it is literally, in the correct usage of the word, impossible for either of you to love someone else as much as you love each other.”

“Lovett,” Emily said, “with all the love in the world, shut the fuck up.”

Both Jon and Lovett gaped at her.

Her voice was calm but her hands were clenched into fists in her lap. “Try that load of bullshit on someone who hasn’t shared headspace with the two of you these last few months.”

Lovett snapped, “It’s a _dream_ , Emily.”

“Are you only in love with Jon in your dreams?”

Lovett looked over at Jon, who said, simply, “You know I’m not.” He put a hand over Lovett’s; Lovett jerked, but didn’t pull back.

Emily crossed the space between them and knelt down in front of Lovett. Without looking away from him, she held out a hand to Jon. “Lovett, when I dreamed about the two of us… I recognized those feelings.”

Lovett leaned back. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

Emily’s voice wavered. “For fuck’s sake, Lovett, can you just let me tell you I love you?”

Lovett went very still. Jon found himself holding his breath. 

After a moment, Emily let out a half-laugh, half-sob. “Well, now I feel ridiculous,” she said.

Lovett burst into motion, reaching out with his free hand and pushing Emily’s hair back from her face. “Don’t freak out,” he said. “This might suck.” He kissed her.

When they pulled back, both with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, Jon was smiling so widely he thought his face might start hurting. “So that’s a no on it sucking?”

“Shut up,” Lovett said. “I suppose you’re going to vow undying love to me, too?”

“For better or for worse,” Jon said, and leaned in to kiss him.

Lovett was still tentative, and Jon freed a hand to wrap around the back of his neck and bring them closer together. Emily, in front of them, had a death grip on his other hand. 

Lovett looked a little dazed when he pulled back. “Are you sure?” he asked suddenly. He looked down at Emily. “You have to be sure. I’m not getting my heart stomped on by two people at the same time, it’s not happening.”

“I’m in,” Emily said without hesitation.

Jon had never loved either of them more. “So am I,” he said. “Lovett?”

Lovett snorted. “Yes. Yes. How could I not be. If you’re--I’m--yes.”

“Take a breath,” Emily told him, kissed him again, then turned and kissed Jon.

“That’s not helping with my breathing,” Lovett muttered, and Jon and Emily broke apart to grin at each other.

Jon jumped to his feet. “Come on,” he said, and towed Lovett and Emily to the bedroom. It would have been sexy and romantic except that he tripped on the rug going into the bedroom, and the two of them had to grab his arms to keep him upright. They were all laughing when they piled into the big bed.

Jon toed off his shoes, kicking them over the edge of the bed, and leaned down to pull Emily’s sandals off her feet. He dug his thumbs into the arches of her feet, and she groaned. “That’s not fair,” she said. “You have inside info.”

“Oh, woe is you,” Lovett said. He’d gotten rid of his socks and shoes and, with only the briefest of hesitations, yanked his T-shirt off.

Jon traced a line up Emily’s bare leg to mid-thigh; she shivered. His hand hovered over the zipper for a moment as he wavered between this world and the other, and then he slid it down slowly. “Give me a hand?” he asked Lovett. Together they eased the dress up off her. 

Emily braced herself on her elbows, shook her hair back, and looked up at them. She was in a silky white bra and panties. Jon had to get a serious grip on himself not to throw himself at her.

He leaned down and kissed her. She slid a hand under his shirt and ran it up his back. He slid his lips down to her neck and shoulder and bit down. Her gasp was muffled - into Lovett’s mouth, he realized, and hummed into her skin. He had to look up, had to watch the two of them kiss each other. His memories zig-zagged again between dreams and reality.

Lovett looked up and met Jon’s eyes; he held the kiss for a long moment more, then leaned forward and brought his mouth to Jon’s. Jon deepened the kiss and felt Emily’s nails bite into his back.

Jon braced himself on one arm, still kissing Lovett, and ran a hand down Emily’s stomach to tangle with the fingers she’d already slipped into her underwear. He slid one finger into her, then two, as she shuddered under him. 

“Not to interrupt this view,” she said, “but someone needs to kiss me before I fly out of my own skin.”

“On it,” Lovett said, muffled, and gave Jon a friendly nibble on the lip before dropping his head down to Emily. 

Jon bent over the two of them and watched Lovett’s hand, tentative as it settled on Emily’s stomach; felt Emily’s fingers against his as they worked in concert; heard Emily gasping and Lovett murmuring to her between kisses.

He lost track of time until Emily’s hips hitched up under his hand and she came with a sob. “Whoa, whoa,” Lovett said almost immediately, and wiped away the tears that were falling. “What’s this, Em?”

“Nothing. I mean. That was just… a lot,” she said, leaning into his hand, into Jon’s lips on her forehead. “I just love you a lot. It should _feel_ a lot, right?”

“Yes,” Jon said. He looked over at Lovett. “For sure.”

Emily got herself under control with another quick breath. “Enough of that. Why are you two still dressed?”

“Uh, we were busy,” Lovett said. “To your benefit, I will remind you.”

She waved her hands at him. “Get naked.”

Jon scrambled out of his clothes, nearly tripping over his shoes because he was trying to watch Lovett take off his pants at the same time, and climbed back on the bed and over Emily to pull Lovett under him. “Your turn,” he said and kissed him. He could feel Emily’s hair brush his shoulder; he lifted his head to see her pressed up against Lovett’s side, sucking a mark into his collarbone.

Jon went back to kissing Lovett, who had one arm around Emily, hand buried in her hair. The other stroked down Jon’s back and landed on his ass, squeezing gently. Jon rolled his hips against Lovett’s and the two of them stopped kissing to pant into each other’s mouths.

“Do that again,” Lovett gasped, and when Jon did, he let out a groaned “fuck, fuck, “ _fuck_.”

Jon kissed Lovett’s neck, his shoulder, the side of his chest opposite where Emily was working. He kept going, experimenting with paying attention to a nipple (Lovett sighed) and poking his tongue into Lovett’s belly button (he giggled). 

He wrapped his hand around Lovett’s cock and looked up to see both Lovett and Emily looking back down at him. Lovett’s hand, which had slid up to the back of Jon’s head, tightened a bit in his hair.

Jon gave them both a long, slow smile, and then sucked Lovett’s cock down as far as he could, meeting his hand at the base.

Lovett broke into a torrent of swearing.

“You look so good together,” Emily said breathlessly, and Lovett cut himself off. “You were made for each other, you know that, right?”

“All of us, we were made for each other,” Lovett said, and Jon could hear them kissing. He ground his hips against the bed and redoubled his efforts. 

Lovett came still kissing Emily. Jon swallowed and lay between Lovett’s legs, trying to remember how to breathe.

“Come over here,” Emily said. Jon looked up, so blinded by arousal that he couldn’t figure out at first why she was pulling off her panties. She laughed, a little wildly. “You are gonna fuck me, right?”

“Oh my God,” Lovett said faintly.

“Oh my _God_ ,” Jon said, and dove for her.

His worlds collided for him as he slid into her; it was like coming home for him, but he knew it was their first time for her. All his memories were of the two of them, but Lovett was there, kissing Emily as Jon dropped his forehead to her shoulder and thrust, tangling his hand with Emily’s as they both explored Jon’s back. Jon fought to stay in this world, in the present, and followed Lovett’s voice, urging him on. Emily cried out as she came, her legs shaking where they were wrapped around Jon, and Jon barely survived a few more thrusts before he followed her.

Lovett - “As the one with the most brainpower right now” - took care of cleaning them all up, and then they tucked themselves into bed. Jon somehow ended up in the middle with Emily and Lovett wrapped around him, and he couldn’t complain.

“I feel like that settles any possible argument about us,” Jon said, rubbing his cheek against the top of Emily’s head.

“As sex so often does,” Lovett said dryly, but he kissed Jon’s shoulder, which was an answer in and of itself.

Emily reached for Lovett’s hand where it lay on Jon’s hip and said simply, “Love you.”

Jon settled his hand over both of theirs and let their combined breathing lull him into a dreamless sleep.


End file.
